Page 78 of The Recluse of Wolfeton House (Ladies of Devon 4)

He reached forward and opened the door before stepping inside. The room was well-lit and well-aired. It did not smell of the sick, and he was glad of it. But the man lying still in the bed was unwelcome and memories assailed Bentley of the last time he’d entered a sickroom.

Mother leaned close and whispered, “The doctor doesn’t believe he will last the night. I think he’s been holding out for days.”

Bentley swallowed. He did not inquire what Mr. Humphries was holding out for. He believed she was referring to him.

He crossed the room and sat in the seat at the head of the bed, his mother standing just behind him. Gazing at the wrinkled face so similar to his own, he was suddenly overcome. Is this how Bentley would look thirty years from now? Most likely. The similarities were striking.

Mr. Humphries shifted, murmuring incoherently, and Mother moved into action. She skirted Bentley’s chair and sat on the edge of the bed, taking her husband’s hand in both of hers. “He has come, Patrick. Silas is here.”

The man blinked, and he murmured again. He looked about for Silas, but his sight was clearly cloudy. Mother reached for Bentley but hesitated, allowing him to make the choice. He leaned closer until Mr. Humphries’s gaze stopped on him, and the man roamed his face, searching it, it seemed. A faint smile touched his lips and he reached forward, resting wrinkled, weak fingers on Bentley’s cheek.

Tears gathered in Bentley’s eyes and dripped down, falling over the man’s hand and gathering in the creases between his fingers.

“Father,” Bentley said, his hoarse voice hardly more than a whisper.

Mr. Humphries’s frail hand pressed further into his cheek, and he curled his face into it.

“He cannot speak,” Mother said softly. “But he can hear you, I believe.”

Bentley’s heart pulsed, and he swallowed hard. Emotions flickered and faded, regret, anger, sorrow, and love filling him simultaneously, and he didn’t know what to say. But he could not change the past. He could only use this time wisely.

Mr. Humphries’s hand fell away from Bentley’s cheek, and he reached to hold it, curling his finger’s around the man’s aged, wrinkly skin. “I have inherited the cleft in your chin, it would seem. That certainly did not come from Mother.”

“And his eyes,” she added.

Bentley nodded, raking his eyes over the man whose blood ran through his veins. “I should thank you for the eyebrows, but they are a touch too large for my liking.”

A faint smile flickered over Mr. Humphries’s lips, and it went straight to Bentley’s chest. He found his breath wavering and the fingers in his hand twitched before Mr. Humphries closed his eyes. Bentley looked to his chest, but the man was still breathing, albeit labored.

When his hand fell limp in Bentley’s, he let it go. Mother’s expression was misty, and she reclaimed her sleeping husband’s hand.

Bentley stood. “I will leave you now,” he said.

She looked up, stricken. “You are returning to Devon already?”

“No. I will remain in the house as long as you need me.”

Relief washed over her face, and Bentley sent her a small smile before he quit the room, his chest bursting with too many emotions to name. But the most present, clear feeling was contentment and resolution. A burden had been lifted from his shoulders, and he felt as though his vision had cleared. He’d given his mother what she’d asked for relentlessly, and he believed they had stepped forward together on a journey of healing.

For now, he had one thing on his mind, and he wanted nothing but to return to her.

Hattie Green.

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